Page 2 of One Last Summer

“You suck.”

“Whatever.” I walk across the porch to the wooden screen door and head inside.

The door slams against the wooden jamb making the same sound I’ve heard a thousand times in my life, but still, I stop to commit it to memory.

My dad’s bedroom door is wide open as usual. He’s shrugging on a clean T-shirt, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. In a house full of only guys none of us feel the need to close the doors if we’re changing.

“Hey, Dad.”

He smiles, pride shining through the creases around his eyes. No one is happier about me playing college ball than him.

“You need me?” He walks over to his beat-up dresser, the same one he shared with my mom and pulls out a pair of jeans.

“Still okay if I take the truck this morning?”

“Yep. Just be back early afternoon. Gonna need your help before everyone arrives.”

Willowbrook is a small town, and almost everyone ends up here at some point during the day to eat, hang out and trade stories we’ve all heard a hundred times.

“Will do. You need me to do anything before I go?”

A part of me hopes that he’ll say yes. My dad has always required less of me than my brother’s as far as the ranch goes, insisting I concentrate on football. I wonder at times what he saw in me that he didn’t in my brothers. As if he put all his eggs in my basket to make it out of this town.

He shakes his head. “Nah, we’re good. Got Jude on what’s needed done this morning.”

There’s that guilt sliding through my veins once more.

“Okay then, see you later.”

“Later, son.”

I grab the keys from the brass hook with a silhouette of a cow and the words, “I’m an expert in the field”. I leap off the stairs to our scratched and dented red pickup truck parked in the dirt drive.

Gillian doesn’t live too far from me, about fifteen minutes, but she’s closer to town than me. She’s already waiting outside when I pull up in front of her ramshackle bungalow.

She always waits outside when she’s eager to get out of there.

One of the first things that bonded us when we met was that we were raised by single dads. First, her mom died during childbirth. Then her dad remarried but her stepmom ran off a couple years ago, which means Gillian’s been picking up the slack at home with her two younger siblings Rowan and Koa.

Before I press on the truck’s brakes, Gillian’s walking my way. She whips open the passenger door and climbs inside.

“Rough morning?” I ask.

“You could say that.” She sets her large beach bag at her feet and leans, giving me a chaste kiss.

Gillian attempts to pull away, but I place my palm to her face to keep her lips against mine. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen.

“Hey?”

She shakes her head. “Let’s just enjoy our day together, okay?”

I study her face for a beat and nod. She doesn’t add the word last to her sentence, but I know she’s thinking it. We both are.

She’s been emotional about my leaving and despite my best efforts to reassure her she has nothing to worry about, that we’re going to be fine, I still get the feeling that she thinks this impending goodbye is final.

I’ll just have to prove her wrong.

Chapter Two

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